• This Ars Technica story from last week sums up what should be pretty obvious to anyone who has followed the OLPC story — they’ve screwed the pooch. Last week it was announced that the XO laptop will use Windows XP as its OS instead of the custom-designed “Sugar” OS, but between the hardware problems and the difficulties OLPC has had trying to sell the laptops to governments, plus the defection of many key execs, Ars Technica is ready to pronounce the whole program a failure. They had more luck selling the laptops to leftie bo-bos than anyone who actually NEEDED them. Nicholas Negroponte soldiers on, but it doesn’t look good for the program.
• I linked to Psiplex’s blog the other day and this post about the hard realities of cancer treatment. He followed up with this post about the encounters that he has had with health care professionals, almost all of which he says were extremely positive. That’s an encouraging message for anyone who might have to face extensive medical treatment. I know from my experience a few years ago that it can be a mixed bag and that the ones he calls “All-Business-Plus” really do make a huge difference.
• In this post a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that the union for radio and TV performers, AFTRA, was sitting down with the producers’ representatives, the AMPTP, to discuss contract terms. AMPTP walked out of earlier talks with the Screen Actors’ Guild, but industry experts believed that AMPTP would force AFTRA to take a bum deal, which would in turn bring SAG back to the table for a similar deal and avert an actors’ strike this summer. The AFTRA folks say that talks are not going especially well, and that negotiations could get long and difficult. Still no threat of a strike, but the contracts do expire June 6.
• The Katie Couric Death Watch has not stopped for a moment. The CBS Evening News’ ratings have dropped to their lowest point in the entire 45-year history of the broadcast, and substitute anchor Bob Schieffer has signed a new long-term contract with CBS, postponing his previously-announced retirement. This New Yorker article by TV critic Nancy Franklin considers what went so horribly wrong at Black Rock.
• Like a jillion other bloggers on the planet, I could hardly wait to post about the substitute teacher who was fired for “practicing wizardry” in Florida. Apparently some people who read the story decided to take it on themselves to call and harass members of the local school board as a result. Meanwhile, the superintendent released more details about the incident that revealed several other complaints about the substitute that he says led to the man’s dismissal AND the local TV station that broke the story admitted to playing up the “wizardry” angle as a hook for the story. And who started all of this? The substitute teacher himself, who called the TV station and offered his distorted version of events. This whole story offers a scary look at the reach of bloggers and how a badly-reported story can get out of hand quickly. There’s plenty of blame to spread around here, but everyone who overinflated this story, myself included, needs to own up to a little of it.

The TV news industry blog TVNewser has been chiming in with insider dirt and industry speculation since the story broke yesterday. This post considers who the likely contenders are to take the anchor seat and gives the inside edge to Harry Smith, with Bob Schieffer as a possible dark-horse. This post considers the timing of the story in the wake of last week’s big round of layoffs at CBS O&O stations, many of which saw long-time anchors and other celebrity on-air talent get the axe (here in Boston, for example, WBZ fired sportscaster Bob Lobel, entertainment reported Joyce Kulhawic, and anchor Scott Wahle, all veterans). And this post talks about what might happen for Couric if she steps down — it’s practically a given that she would be made a regular on 60 Minutes, but there’s talk she could jump to CNN and replace Larry King.

CBS News is having a bad couple of weeks. Earlier in the week it was revealed that CBS was considering outsourcing some of its newsgathering operation to CNN, though they later very publicly backed away from that. Paying a mega-star anchor bajillions to host a dud newscast is very hard to justify when you’re firing staff and trying to outsource your basic news operation. Given the now-very-public discussions, it wouldn’t surprise me to see her bail even earlier than November from the nightly news, do 60 Minutes for a short face-saving amount of time, then leave CBS entirely.

San Francisco Chronicle TV columnist Tim Goodman is one of the best in his line of work. I don’t read his column as regularly as I should, but I’ve just added his blog to my RSS feed list to stay on top of his stuff more.

Today’s column is particularly amusing, if for no other reason than imagining him dancing in tiny circles of glee like Ed Grimley over the news that Katie Couric finishes the TV season 5% behind where CBS News was last year before she took the anchor chair.

He’s not too enthralled with televised bingo, either.